Description
Label Review.
2009 album. Their final one. Also available on vinyl.
Our Overview.
Alt rock band Sonic Youth’s ‘The Eternal’ was their sixteenth album and has long been out of stock, but is now finally re-pressed and re-issued. But, more importantly, it ranks as one of their more inspired efforts in a 28 year career.
‘The Eternal’ is a supercharged rocker, with cleaner, louder production and more straight forward momentum. Breaking the clockwork-like routine they had followed for the last decade, there was a 3-year gap between this and their last studio LP "Rather Ripped", for the first time since "Washing Machine"/"A Thousand Leaves". Several factors played into this, like relearning the 'Daydream Nation' material around the time in their standard cycle when they'd begin working on new tunes. However, the fact that this album would be their first since leaving Geffen after a 20-year relationship meant that they had to find the right venue to release it, which they did, in Matador Records. Unlike 'Rather Ripped', Kim Gordon plays no bass on this album, instead returning to guitar on all tracks except the vicious opener 'Sacred Trickster', also the first single. Another noted first is that many of the songs feature all three vocalists in the band singing in unison, or playing off each other, a practice SY had rarely employed until now.
Recorded through November and December of 2008 at the band’s Echo Canyon West studio in Hoboken, NJ, ‘The Eternal’ features many firsts for a Sonic Youth album, including a number of shared vocals between Kim, Thurston and Lee and the studio debut of former Pavement / Dustdevils bassist Mark Ibold - no stranger to Matador Records himself - a member of Sonic Youth’s touring band for the past few years.